Noa Strong

04/28/2026

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Please keep our girl in your prayers tomorrow.
Her nausea is on the rise again, and we’re at our wits end on what to do.

She will have labs tomorrow and then her antibiotic infusion. Last time, it made her really sick so we’re asking for stronger nausea meds pre-infusion.

There is also the chance of an IVIG and other medications. We’re preparing for a long day, but hoping for a light one.

We start bright and early. We will keep everyone updated as the day goes. This is her last appointment of cycle 4 of LTM.

See a shark, Say a prayer. 🦈💛✨

04/17/2026

Update on Noa:

She is dramatic, but resilient.

After probably the worst projectile vomiting incident to date (Hall County EMS almost met us 😆) Noa came home, crashed in her bed, and has spent the last day and a half recovering and mellowing out.

Do we know why she had a projectile vomiting episode? No. Do we really wish they’d end? Yes. 😆

Also, pro tip from Mom. Don’t let your child eat a breakfast of only raspberries and strawberries if she’s acting a little nauseous. Thrown up red berries look just look blood clots. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Hince why Hall County EMS almost met us.

For now, we’re going to revel in the fact she feels good today. We have 153 days left, that’s it. Tomorrow marks 5 months left in active treatment.

Also, we recently found out Noa knows how to administer her own medicine. I’m so proud but heart broken at the same time. Things my 3 year old should not know how to do.

For now, we’re taking today as a good day 💛

04/15/2026

Please keep Noa in your prayers. We are having a very rough day.

03/25/2026

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Noa tackled clinic today. Her numbers look good. ANC is still in a safety zone, which we love. Her IGG was good, so we didn’t need an IVIG infusion. Liver numbers are completely normal 🙌🏻 Praise God!!! We are so grateful for that!

Noa’s hemoglobin is on the low side. (8.9) if she gets to 8.0 or below, we will need to do a blood transfusion, so we are just watching her levels.

Now for her Pentam infusion 🤦🏻‍♀️ If Noa’s going to hav a reaction, she’s going to be dramatic about it. We made it 3 minutes into her infusion before she started vomiting. Luckily, our favorite Nurse Dani was visiting and helped us pause the infusion to do a quick round of nausea meds. We continued on, and she did okay until we tried to leave, when she threw up again. So now we know, she’ll have to be pretty heavily pre-medded before her infusion next month, but otherwise she did really well.

She was absolute spoiled by our new Child Life with a new baby doll and some color books. And then Camp Sunshine came by to drop off some stickers and snacks, and CURE brought Noa a chicken biscuit!

Please say a prayer that Noa has a good rest of her week! She has an exciting Friday night coming up 💛 She is going to her first professional hockey game! (Thank you Camp Sunshine!) We are very excited!

We go back on 4/28 to see how her numbers are and get another round of Pentam.

Until then,

See a shark, Say a prayer 🦈💛✨

03/24/2026

Mako Bean has an appointment bright and early at 9am tomorrow. 💛 She’ll get blood work, her antibiotic infusion, and possibly an IVIG.

Pray for an easy infusion and that Noa will feel okay afterwards. 💛 This is the first time she’ll get this infusion without the barrage of other medications masking her symptoms.

03/14/2026

HI FRIENDS! We are gearing up for our 🚒🔥FIRE TRUCK PULL🚒🔥

May 16th!!

We are trying to raise $500 for our team! We are already 10% OF THE WAY THERE!!!!!

Come out and hang with us! Come support our sharky girl!!!

Curing Kids Cancer Fundraiser

03/12/2026

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It might be too soon to say, but I think we’re finally coming out on the other side of Noa’s steroid belly.

She has been in great spirits and has a desire to cook soup for everyone, non stop. 🤣

She was also finally able to rock her Butterfly Stitches t-shirt 💛

Please continue your prayers for our sweet girl. We are back in clinic in 12 days (and hopefully not sooner) and we’ll see how this affected her numbers.

03/11/2026

Please keep Noa in your prayers. She’s gotten a nasty case of steroid belly with this last spinal tap, and with all the new medication changes she’s had in the last two weeks, her stomach is having a rough go of it.

03/04/2026

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Noa had her sedation appointment today to start Cycle 4 of Long Term Maintenance.

What was supposed to be a very long day ended up being relatively short, thankfully! Because Noa had her antibotic infusion two weeks ago when we came in for emergency fluids, we got to skip it today! Her IGG numbers were also in a safety zone, so we didn’t have to do that infusion either! She did receive chemo in both her spinal fluid and her port today, and then came home and took her daily oral chemo.

Noa was as fiesty as ever today. She fought her sedation hard and ended up waking up early, before her mandatory 30 minute lay down. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had to wrestle a very high toddler coming out of anesthesia, but it’s both fun and stressful. Because of her post sedation wrestling match we did have a major projectile vomiting episode in the car, but she is okay. Truthfully, she was more upset that we weren’t immediately taking her to get her traditional “rice rice and quesadilla” than she was that she threw up.

Her spinal tap results are already back in! She is still clear of any blasts, which is amazing. They do not have a bloody tap this time, and all of her numbers are looking incredible. We’re very blessed that it was an easy enough day.

Sweet girl is now home and resting, and she started her steroid pulse. If you’ve never had the pleasure of a tiny toddler Hulk Hogan running through your house, say a prayer for those who have, haha. We are going to take it easy the rest of the week and let Mako ride out this steroid pulse wave.

Thank you for all your continued support and prayers. We will be back in clinic in 21 days for blood work and our next antibiotic infusion.

See a shark, say a prayer
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03/03/2026

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Mako has another lumbar puncture tomorrow. Please say a prayer for her and for her care team as they preform her procedure.

She is so loved and she was so excited to receive her new Butterfly Stitches sweatshirt from her Aunt Emi 💛

See a shark, say a prayer. 🦈💛✨

02/22/2026

Hey guys!!

We have been asked to join Curing Kids Cancer in their local Fire Truck Pull on May 15th!!!

We have an incredible team of local Dawson County firefighters (and mom!) who are going to pull our truck to victory!!!

We are trying to raise money for this incredible organization!!! Please share with family and friends! Every dollar counts towards incredible research that helps amazing kids just like
Noa!!! 💛

Curing Kids Cancer Fundraiser

02/21/2026

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Today was…wild. Absolutely wild. 😅😅

We started the day promptly at 3:48am with Noa waking up coughing from what we think was reflux. Daddy got her settled and just as she was about to fall asleep, it happened. The vomiting. We got her cleaned up and she crawled into Mami and Daddy’s bed, where she proceeded to vomit again. (Thank god we had an emesis bag on hand this time.)

On top of the vomiting, she was having bad bouts of diarrhea. It got to to the point again where she couldn’t keep anything down, and concerned about becoming super dehydrated again, we were advised by her care staff to make our way back down to Arthur M Blank to the infusion floor. They were concerned that Noa accidentally picked up some type of stomach nastiness while she was there Wednesday and wanted to do another blood panel to rule it out.

Today she received Amend, which is a nausea medication infusion that should help curb her nausea for 48-72 hours (which is amazing because she also had to take her secondary oral chemo today that she’s very sensitive too) she received two bags of fluids, and they went ahead and did her new infusion antibiotics that replaced her oral ones, just to be safe.

Her numbers came back better than Wednesdays. ANC, Platelets, everything is in a safe range. Her hemoglobin is a little on the lower side of safety, which makes her Daddy and I nervous, just with her history of her hemoglobin dropping fast, so we are keeping an eye on that. But it’s still in the safety range of 9.0.

They think that everything she experienced today was still related to the reaction from the oral antibiotics. I didn’t give her Zofran Thursday evening before she went to bed because she was doing so well, and her body wasn’t ready to give up on the help it needed.

Thankfully, this is easily fixed and it’s not an illness, which we praise God for.

I cannot thank you all enough for your continued prayers and support of our miracle girl. We seriously could not walk this journey without you.

We are now home, and Noa is resting. We are just going to lie low and take it super easy this weekend.

We chose this picture of Noa today because she harassed our super sweet nurse for a banana every time she saw him. Mind you, the child refuses to eat bananas at home. I’m not sure what it was about Mr Spencer that made her crave bananas, but she ended up eating 1 & 1/2 bananas while we were getting fluids. Only my crazy girl, haha.

Thank you again for your support. We are praying for a weekend at HOME! And hopefully we can avoid AMBH until 3/03 for her next lumbar puncture.

See a homebody shark, say a prayer.
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